Best of 2011

Good evening ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to these year's countdown of the most bitchin' records in the universe. At least the ones I've taken the time to listen to - a man can only do so much. The following ten album all grabbed my attention at some point in 2011 and held on to it, so these are the ones I'd recommend to others - there's a few stock choices from the other 'Best of 2011' lists but also a couple of oddities that I chanced upon over the last 12 months, so I hope it gives you a few pointers or puts a smile on your face. Feel free to use the comments to suggest stuff I've missed - there's a list of an extra ten that nearly made it on the way plus the inevitable list of records that pissed me off too, but for the moment let's start with the good stuff.

1. The Vaccines - What did you expect from the Vaccines?

Probably a bit of an obvious choice for some, but if I had to pick one record that put a massive smile on my face last year then this is head and shoulders above the rest. I repeated the same error I've made countless times in the past by initially ignoring the latest pretty-boy indie sensation on the grounds that they were just another bunch of posh boys making shitty music that would be forgotten six months down the line - you'd think I'd have wised up seeing as I did exactly the same thing with The Drums, Bloc Party, The Strokes and various others only to adopt their cause further down the line. Anyway, once I'd pulled my head out of my arse and given their album a proper listen it turned into one of those records I played so much that I ended up having to wean myself off it so I didn't wear it out (figuratively speaking of course - I'm not sure you can wear out an MP3....).

'What did you expect....' rules precisely because it's nothing new - like most of the great indie debuts of the last two decades it's crammed full of potential singles and festival anthems, all of which are capable of prompting skinny jean stampedes towards the dancefloor. Growing up through Britpop and the noughties Strokes/Libertines fallout, I've been raised on this kind of shit so it's hard not to love it and it's probably even more endearing because nobody seems to make these kind of records any more, they're all too busy leaning over mixing consoles or growing beards and fucking off to live in the woods. The Vaccines know the value of short bursts of guitar pop, clever lyrics and massive anthemic indie choruses and they turn everything up to the max so that nothing gets stale, songs end before they get dull and singer Justin Young belts it all out at the top of his range (so much so that his vocal chords are apparently fucked already - go Justin!). 'Wreckin' Bar' sounds like the Ramones and probably sends the crowd mental, 'Norgaard' makes me smile because it's about a teenage supermodel, 'Wetsuit' gets me choked up, 'If you wanna' is on a par with 'I predict a riot' for indie omnipresence, 'and 'All in White' is probably gonna be used by the BBC sometime soon for one of their 'upcoming attractions' montages. There's no crap on here, and if guitar music hadn't totally disappeared from the singles charts then they'd probably have at least half a dozen hits at their disposal. This stuff is so catchy that the boy Sykes needs to be forcibly restrained when he hears it after a few drinks, lest his atonal singing along wake the neighbours and his poorly coordinated dancing result in him stomping on your foot and spilling your drink. The mark of a classic!

Check out : 'Norgaard', which just edges it as my favourite track. But check it all out and pick your own.

2. The Field - Looping State of Mind

It's all about the loop these days! Hypnotic repetition in 2011 was like mullets and saxophone solos in 1985 - indispensable to critical and commercial success. Which of course means that every fucker out there is trying to hop on the bandwagon and create the next 'classic', mostly to fairly tedious results. The one to break the mould and actually come out with something special turned out to be some weird Swedish guy known as The Field who totally knocked me sideways with this little gem (I normally make a point of ignoring anything Swedish and electronic on account of the long list of clever bugger hipster bullshit like The Knife that's come out over the years, although this dude gets a pass because he's ugly and his music rules). I liked the last Animal Collective record because they'd finally managed to merge the whole loop thing with tunes you could actually dance to but I still felt they didn't take it far enough - 'Looping State of Mind' does exactly that. This sounds like the stuff you'd hear emanating from the dance tent at some festival at 3am and end up wandering in only to get drawn into bopping away for hours, transfixed by the pulsating sounds that open up a private universe. Like The Orb's live record from '93, this guy establishes the arena he'll be working in upfront and then lets the hidden ingredients rise to the surface - only instead of appreciating all this whacked out on a bean bag in the chill-out room, it'll hit you when you're already out there on the floor. He's not trying to pump out anthems, he's in it for the three-hour DJ sets where the true experts can command the crowd like they're conducting an orchestra, like he knows what we want but only he has the skill to bring it out of us. Andrew Weatherall, Leftfield, Underworld.....only a chosen few can claim to do this, and I think this guy's on his way to joining them. And the coolest thing is that, as the title indicates, the whole album can be played on repeat without breaking the chain, meaning that you can loop this shit for hours until you finally get cramp and have to crawl back to your tent while everyone else is having breakfast. Maybe that's why he's called 'The Field'....it's already a festival classic!

Check out : Opener 'Is this power', a 9-minute orbit of this guy's planet. Stooopendous!

3=. Beady Eye - Different Gear, Still Speeding

3. = Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds - s/t

I can't be arsed trying to choose between these two so I've just put both of them in to save argument. Which is perhaps ironic, seeing as Noel and Liam have spent most of their time slagging off each others' output in the press since Oasis fell apart a couple of years back. But, as is often the case when a decent band breaks up, the seperation yields better results than you'd expect. Instead of putting up with each other's shit for long enough to crank out another average Oasis record that their heart wasn't truly in, the two of them managed to go off in totally different directions and indulge themselves to come out with some cool new shit.

Both sound like they're free of the limits imposed by Oasis - Beady Eye is all about Liam pitching the tunes to his strengths as a vocalist, meaning lots of the Paul Macartney end of The Beatles in the melody department and some stonking Stones-esque rockers that the rest of the band can get their teeth into. 'Four Letter Word' boots the door wide open with some prime sonic sleaze, 'For Anyone' and 'The Beat goes on' sound tailor made for sweaty blokes in Reni hats to bellow along to at gigs and 'Bring the Light' sticks in a huge piano riff that Noel would've never allowed near an Oasis record. There's loads of retro revivalism going on here but it all sounds fresher than late period Oasis and with the band Liam's got behind him you know this stuff is going to sound great live - thumbs up to the boys!

Noel, on the other hand, gets a bit of peace and quiet for once and makes the most of it to lay down some seriously mellow stuff - whilst Liam is off perfecting his peacock strut, Noel's brought in strings and horns to augment his old-school melodic songwriting style. This is one to put on your headphones to smooth out a metro journey or a long car ride - catchy singalong tunes that showcase the dude's strengths not only as a songwriter but also as a singer (he only seemed to sing in Oasis when Liam couldn't cope with the vocal or didn't like the song - no wonder he's more chilled out now). This record's more Ray Davies than Mick Jagger, with Noel's lyrics planted in pastoral English pop - stuff happening on the village green, him living a dream in his record machine, that kind of thing. It could sound cheesy done by someone else but you know you're in good hands with Noel, just as with his political comments - he's an old-fashioned kind of guy but he's very rarely wrong.

So it's heads you win, tails you win with these two - who'd thought Oasis breaking up would turn out to be such a good thing? I'm still pissed off for these guys bailing on me at Rock en Seine a couple of years back but on this evidence I'm prepared to forgive them.

Check out : 'If I had a gun' from Noel and 'The Beat goes on' from Liam. It's a score draw.

4. The Devil's Blood - The Thousandfold Epicentre

This nearly didn't make it on account of it being devilishly difficult to track down - I acually had to buy the fucking thing on CD in the end. On CD!!!! Are we back in 1997 or something???? Fortunately, Dutch 'Horror Soul' purveyors The Devil's Blood are worth the effort - I got a tip-off from Terrorizer magazine that this was worth a pop and it turned out to be the standout heavy record of the year. Built on the same premise as Japan's Ghost who broke through to the festival circuit in 2011, these guys play heavy psychedelic rock infused with a diabolic dose of Satanic imagery and occult mysticism coupled with a live act that will make you shit your pants with either excitement or terror, depending on what floats your boat. Their enigmatic female vocalist 'The Mouth of Satan' belts out the tunes like a creepier Grace Slick and regularly douses herself in pig's blood onstage, whilst the instrumental side of things is upheld by a leather-clad frontline of three hairy guitarists and a bassist sporting a similar stage garb of beards 'n' blood. You have to see this shit to believe it - she stands motionless onstage sporting a thousand yard stare while the rest of them trade solos and straddle monitors like modern day Iron Maiden, except that these folks are deadly serious. Their songs frequently rumble off towards the 10 minute mark and bear all the hallmarks of classic heavy rock - towering riffs, wild vocals and headbanging heavy metal rhythm. This is like an evil Jefferson Airplane, trippy psychedelia channeled through decades of sinister metal folklore and classic hard rock showmanship. Like a darker cousin to fellow psychedelic revivalists Tame Impala, The Devil's Blood draw on the same influences but take you somewhere different - if new psych rock is your thing, listen to Impala's 'Innerspeaker' on your headphones on the way to work and 'Thousandfold Epicentre' on the way home in the evening (dousing yourself in pig's blood while doing so will also guarentee you a seat on the metro). I can even recommend getting the CD version for the woo-hah batshit crazy artwork included with the deluxe edition - it's worth the extra investment, although there's no Ouijaboard included unfortunately. This is one intoxicating ride to the darkside - take advantage of their relative anonymity to catch these folks while they're a well-kept secret and indulge your senses in this diabolic delight.

Check out : 'Fire Burning' is the potential hit but check out the live show for a glimpse of the real deal.

5. The Horrors - Skying

If you'd have told me back in 2007 when their atonal goth-garage debut was one of the features in my 'worst of the year' list that The Horrors would be one of my favourite bands a few years later, I'd probably have punched you and poured my drink on your shoes. Times change I guess. There is also the not inconsiderable difference that these kids learnt to play their instruments in the meantime, allowing them to move away from the clunky scenester indie that had gotten them onto the cover of the NME before they'd even released anything towards richer fields of sonic scenery. It was a pretty steep learning curve too - 2009's 'Primary Colours' was a true shock to the system, prompting comments along the lines of 'Holy Crap! This is really good' from cynics such as myself. 'Skying' continues the journey, though it covers as much new ground as its predecessor - where 'Primary Colours' took in a love of drone and shoegaze, 'Skying' goes on from there to nestle in more synthetic, bass-driven elements. Their new sound is hard to put your finger on - weirdly, it reminds me a lot of The Human League, not just because Faris' voice sounds a fair bit like Phil Oakey's but more for the the way synths are the backbone of the entire sound rather than intrusive stabs into the song structure. If you check out 'Dare' it sounds like everything on there was built on top of the synth foundation and 'Skying' works the same way, keeping the guitar sound from the previous record but letting the keys lead the charge. It works astoundingly well - once again, the production nails it and you can really lose yourself in this shit on a good pair of headphones. In fact that's what I did coming up from a heavy dose of the flu over Xmas, much in the same way that I got into Underworld's 'Beaucoup Fish' over a decade earlier which ended up becoming my favourite record of the time. Sometimes it takes stuff like that to cement an album in your memory - if so, it was worth it, 'Skying' looks set to become my quintessentially 2011 record much like 'Beaucoup Fish' was all about 1999 (and, retrospectively, 'Dare' is totally 1981). Not bad from a bunch of kids I'd originally dismissed as clueless hipsters with shitty haircuts - I can't fucking wait to hear what this lot come up with next.

Check out : 'Endless Blue' - first you're floating on a lilo in the Tropics for a couple of minutes, then you get hit by a tidal wave of fuzz pedal. Best track by a country mile.

6. Arctic Monkeys - Suck it and see

Another band that's getting better with age, the Monkeys understood some time ago that songs about wearing trainers and getting beaten up in the queue for shitty nightclubs weren't gonna pay their way forever. Their position at the top of indie's food chain could only be maintained by changing tack, thus their Yorkshire stomping ground was abandoned both lyrically and physically for them to move Stateside and get Josh Homme on the case to beef their sound back up. 'Humbug' was a decent album but on the strength of their latest offering it seems increasingly transitional - 'Suck it' is a more solid setlist, free of any form of cultural jetlag and striking the perfect balance between their Northern feistyness and the encroaching influence of meaty US blues-rock. It's a totally logical evolution when you think about it - the Monkeys started out as a pretty funky bunch in their earliest days before tightly-strung indie was in vogue, and they now sound like they're taking their time and cranking out more potent, matured slabs of indie-rock rather than three minutes smash 'n' grab affairs about losing your bus fare. Alex Turner's always been good at writing from the crotch too, although here he's actually on more of a romantic trip - the title track sees him almost Elvis it up; 'Be cruel to me, cos I'm a fool for you'. That's probably why the quiff came in. Elsewhere, they get ballsy with cuts like 'Brick by Brick' and the ridiculous yet brilliant lead-off single 'Don't sit down cos I've moved your chair'. Their sound is seductively heavy and should sound amazing live - you tend to forget how tight a band they've always been - but the cocksure charm that brought them to the fore back in the mid-noughties hasn't dissipated, instead it's given them the balls to go out into the world and soak up other thrills. They're back stronger than ever, and this latest platter is meaty enough to satisfy lovers of solid, groovy rock without alienating the British indie crowd that fell in love with their wit back in 2005. Go get yer gums around this dear reader, you'll be glad you did.

Check out : The title track. I fucking love this song.

7. Battles - Gloss Drop

Is it rock? Is it art? Is it a great big pink blobby thing? Battles' second record is a hard one to categorise - having started off as a sort of angular noise-rock project, they promptly disappeared for a few years before returning to dump this generous dollop of weirdness into your speakers. I found their debut (2007's 'Mirrored') a bit difficult to get into, it just seemed like another bunch of dudes playing sproingy instrumental stuff. However, this new one conquered me pretty much straight away, mainly due to the embarassingly catchy lead single 'Ice Cream' which landed early in 2011. Built around a warped ice cream van jingle gradually accelerating into oblivion before bursting into a jarring dancefloor smash, it was probably the year's coolest single. Buoyed by this discovery I bagged the album when it landed and, though a few listens were needed before I could claim it as a favourite, overall they've kept up the quality where it matters. I think the main difference (though I'm loath to admit it as someone who hates musos) is that these guys can really play their instruments - they're not afraid to veer off into territory that would put a smile of the faces of jazz buffs, though they fortunately stay the right side of pretentious and manage to balance the avant garde with the eminently danceable throughout. There's plenty of high-end stuff like steel drums, bells and tambourines to bring a pop feel to it all but there's nothing lightweight going on here - these guys could lock in and blow you across the room if they wanted to, but in exercising restraint with the feedback pedal they've actually come up with something way more potent. There's elements of world music, jazz, afrobeat and what sounds like kids' TV theme music in here but none of it is throwaway or token - everything these guys have mixed in has been absorbed from the beat upwards, they've spread the net wide and come through with their own multicolour end product. In an age of fake whiteboy Afro-rock, frigid electronica and plastic synth fetishism, here's a bunch of guys who figured out how to strap in and play tight, dynamic rock before getting eclectic - they came through the hard way and it's proven worthwhile. And there's even a Gary Numan cameo!

Check out : 'Ice Cream', obviously. But check out the Numanoid on 'My Machines' too.

8. Chelsea Wolfe - Apokalypsis

More spooky shit. I couldn't decide between this and the David Lynch record when I was compiling this list but Chelsea got the winning vote on the grounds that I had a pretty good idea what Lynch's 'Crazy Clown Time' was gonna sound like, whereas this was a real surprise. Female singer-songwriters are ten a penny these days, and that's totally a good thing - the wide variety of musical ladies out there means there's something for everyone, or at least there should be. The post-Winehouse nu-soul stuff like Adele isn't really my cup of tea (though I have no particular objection to it either) but towards the murkier end of the female pysche there's some dark, dazzling stuff coming to the fore. Lana Del Ray pretty much out-Lynched the Lynchster with 'Video Games' and she's odds on to drop a stonking debut LP in 2012, but the fact that the track swamped the end of year polls and even got a nod from David Cameron made me think that she's destined to become the oddity in a lot of bland music collections, the audio equivalent of guys who fast-forwarded to all the lesbian bits in 'Mulholland Drive' rather than embracing the dark heart of the film as a whole. Chelsea Wolfe is at the other end of that particular spectrum - she's like 'Wild at Heart', part Laura Dern in bright red lipstick but mixed in with a stiff dose of Willem Defoe blowing his head off with a shotgun and that guy who wants it to be Christmas all the time. There's an AAARGH factor here that will shake off part-timers (notably the feral shrieking on 30-second opener 'Primal/Carnal') built on the echoic vibe of a sultry cabaret act. 'Apokalypsis' reminds me of Jarboe, though there's moments where she gets closer to Beth Gibbons of Portishead in all her mournful and despairing glory. And she's not leaning heavily on production or A-list musical support - the backing band keep their distance throughout, leaving her voice to put in the work and dominate proceedings. The thing I like about this most is that Chelsea seems happy to play the role full time - she's not just some college girl going through a burlesque phase, this is the real deal. She even does Burzum covers when she plays live! I'll admit I have a weakness for girls like this - ones with flashing neon signs above their heads saying 'This bitch is crazy!' but who nonetheless remain fascinatingly seductive. They're always bad news bears of course, the sort that'll give you a great night but as soon as you pop out for a pint of milk they're painting your wardrobe doors in menstrual blood. Save yourself the heartache and pencil in a late night session with a pot of strong coffee, 'Apokalypsis' on your headphones and the door firmly LOCKED. Even Varg Vikernes would be hiding behind the mixing desk from imaginary Tippex-eyed sirens after such a session. Surrender to the Wolfe gentlemen, you know it makes sense.

Check out : 'Demons' is CW at her most radio-friendly, but check out 'Pale on Pale' for a swim in murkier waters.

9. Weekend - Sports

This year's obligatory shoegaze release. I set myself the challenge of buying records that didn't all sound like My Bloody Valentine early in 2011, though not before I'd bagged this little gem. Weekend have their priorities straight from the get-go, vocals low in the mix and waves of fuzz pedal and feedback upfront over relentless bass and drums that propel you forward through a veritable wind tunnel of gorgeous noise. They take the blueprint one step further than their forerunners A Place To Bury Strangers, phasing out the grandstanding and filling in any empty spaces with swathes of white noise and rumbling bass. You'd expect watching these guys live would be like drowning in sonic soup, there's no air in there anywhere and the echoic vocals sound like they've been recorded in the lowest sublevels of the shoegaze netherworld. Think the Stone Roses' 'Don't Stop' spliced with early MBV and Joy Division's rhythm section, all black and white cold case aesthetics - the singer even reminds me a bit of Ian Curtis, not a compliment you dish out very readily. 'Sports' isn't totally lost to the darkside, there's enough in the way of hooks to make this every bit as listenable as their shoegaze contempories but no extremes are tuned down on the way to making a catchy record, everything on here is heavy, heavy stuff. One for running at night, sliding into the heavy end of a red wine stupour or simply disappearing into yourself in the wee small hours, 'Sports' is 45 minutes of drowning in low-end lysergia at the end of the universe. Go get.

Check out : 'End Times' and watch the stars collapse around you.

10. Teeth - Whatever

'Y'all think we care? Cos we donnnn't....'. Cue screechy Chicks on Speed vocals and clunky synthetic bompf bompf bompf. Teeth's second record pretty much spells it out to you from the start - this is hipster London electro and they're way too postmodern and cool to give a shit if you don't like it. Thing is....it's actually pretty good. I should stop reading NME reviews - 'Like unexpected prison sex on Christmas Day, it may provoke a mixture of conflicting emotions but none of them are likely to be boredom' wrote John Doran, a better music scribe than I'll ever be. 'Whatever' is a full-on racket, ten slabs of thumping electro-rave jammed with frantic bleeps and early 90s car alarm hardcore. None of it sounds like a labour of love, but the lack of finesse makes it all the more appealing - this is the sort of stuff music students come up with over all-night programming sessions on the wrong sort of drugs, a frantic mix of their favourite records of the previous 10 minutes all mashed into a series of bite-size chunks ready to fling out during their next DJ set hoping for the best. It probably speaks volumes that the band couldn't even be bothered to come up with a proper title or album cover for their endeavours. There's more than a passing resemblence to Crystal Castles here, though in truth Teeth probably have more in common with Atari Teenage Riot in their full-frontal delivery and reluctance to deviate from their chosen formula, eschewing Castles' more varied take on electro-rave in favour of pummelling you into submission with more of the same. It doesn't do them any harm though - 'Whatever' clocks in at just over half an hour, every second put to good use and any of the tracks on show would slot right into a hi-NRG DJ set at your local strobe temple. Deicide used to record death metal records along the same lines - keep it brief, stick to one theme (in their case, Satan rather than glowsticks), hammer your point home then get the fuck out before you start to bore people. Teeth, the electro legacy of Glen Benton is yours to treasure.

Check out : 'Flowers', three minutes inside the mind of every hyperactive child.

There you have it folks - stay tuned for the (nearly as) good, the bad and the downright ugly of last year which should be up here shortly.